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If you’re one of six million Slack users, you probably appreciate how the business and collaboration app has made your work life easier. A former Google and Foursquare exec, Noah Weiss is Slack’s Head of Search, Learning and Intelligence. His team is behind AI-powered features like message and channel prioritization, and smart search.

Responsible for powering one of the most popular business apps in the world, Weiss has a unique view into how people do their jobs. At a recent brunchwork at Galvanize, he shared his insights into the future of work and machine learning’s role.

1. Expertise wins over hierarchy.

From corporations to startups, everyone adheres to some form of organizational hierarchy. You might think that the org chart is indicative of workflow, but according to Weiss, that’s not the case.

Workflow has little to do with an org chart. Instinctively, when someone has a question or needs advice, they will go to the next person above them in the org chart. The problem is that person often does not have the expertise to answer.

Slack's Head of SLI shared his predictions for work and AI at brunchwork.brunchwork

Within an organization, a person’s expertise is more valuable than title. “The people who are within your Slack work space are highly motivated to help you because they're coworkers.” When it comes to workflow, managers should examine: Who do people go to when they need help? Weiss’ team strives to shorten and improve workflow through technology. Last year, Slack rolled out an expert search tool that identifies the best contact person based on knowledge and experience.

2. Machine learning will battle information overload.

“Share things that are works in progress,” Weiss said. “Reveal things that are not fully thought through yet.”

On one hand, this approach humanizes managers because it shows that they don’t always have the answers and need support too. On the other, it provides a platform so that everyone can learn from a coworker’s experience.

Companies should be aware that adopting this level of transparency can be a double-edged sword. With all this knowledge sharing comes noise. Slack’s sophisticated search tool reduces noise by directing queries to the best positioned team member.

3. Everyone will have a Chief of Staff.

The benefit of AI is its ability to, “reduce all those mundane, repetitive things that you have to do every day so you can go back to doing creative and exciting work.”

For Slack, the ultimate goal is to make it feel as if everyone has their own personal Chief of Staff. To that end, the technology needs to first understand users’ interests and priorities. The more that people interact with AI technologies, the better those technologies become at identifying user preferences. The final piece of building a virtual Chief of Staff is communicating insights as effectively as a human would.

Accomplishing that level of sophistication could take many years. Machine learning has completely transformed how we work, but it’s still in the early stages.

I'm the cofounder and CEO of brunchwork, a curated community of high-achieving millennials hungry for their next opportunity. We host brunches and dinners in NYC and SF, and plan to launch LA in 2018. You can participate from anywhere by subscribing to our newsletter that br...